Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

-----while the turnout is higher. That might not necessarily result in a win. There has not been careful consideration in the debate so far of when, next year, the plebiscite could take place. There could be an argument that it should be a standalone event where nothing else is interfering in it. We need to tease those things out. I am like Mr. Gavin and am not waiting for another year. If we do not get it next year, it will fall.

The second thing is an important observation on Limerick. It is the only one of the three cities that had a civil society organisation on the ground trying to run a campaign, albeit on a shoestring budget, in favour of the directly elected mayor. I am not from Limerick and did not spend too much time during the debate there. My read is that that was probably what made the decisive difference in the outcome of the vote. For all our talk of wanting directly elected mayors, the political system in Cork, Limerick and Waterford was not ignited around the public campaign. Councillors were too busy trying to get themselves re-elected to the councils. Therefore, I think consideration also needs to be given to what the best platform is. Mr. O'Leary is right that the referendums show the way. When there are broad-based civil society-led campaigns that have cross-party political backing, that works. Limerick is a small example of that. I think that is worthwhile.

We need to simplify this. The recommendations are ambitious. The Government is not going to give that list of powers in the plebiscite. We know that from what is in the Limerick Bill. Manchester in England is a good example of rolling devolution having real merit. If one takes a number of really big ticket items like transport, one could say that a directly elected mayor in Dublin is responsible for transport policy and that all the money that currently sits with different State agencies, coming from central government, is pooled in the office of the mayor. One of the functions of the mayor is to reach agreement with the four Dublin local authorities and providers of transport on policy. Then the money is distributed through the mayor's office. That is not extra cash for Dublin. It just puts all the cash that is going into Dublin in place. We are not changing who employs whom or who pays pensions. That all stays. One is giving the mayor a really powerful role, which is democratically accountable to elected members and which interfaces with service providers. If one crosses off two or three items from one's list, while that is a big ask in one's first five years as directly elected mayor, the promise is that if those items are delivered, the public can then come back for more.

To answer Senator Seery Kearney's question, I think some of our considerations in the committee should be about how we make it less daunting than what is in this report, but also how to keep open the ask in the report, which is for very substantial powers. The directly elected mayor worked well for transport in London. What Livingstone did with transport showed that. That is the conversation we need to have.

I ask the witnesses for a response to the three observations. Does anybody have a notion or any thoughts about when next year is the best time for the plebiscite? I think that is really important. If one was to start to move to strategic allocation of powers, which might be easiest to start with first? I am particularly interested in any observations Dr. Quinn has about Limerick and what happened during and after the plebiscite that we could learn from.